


[ you can't sleep; there are monsters nearby ]

by darkaqua darkgreen (xwastaken)



Series: [ dream again, dream better ] [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Video Game World, Arguing, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Found Family, Minecraft Credits, Multi, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other: See Story Notes, Temporary Character Death, Trapped in a video game, no betas we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27766747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xwastaken/pseuds/darkaqua%20darkgreen
Summary: You are the player.Wake up.------------Minecraft AU where the gang is all trapped inside the game. They have no recollection of how they got there or where things precisely went wrong. They have no idea if beating the game will save them or destroy everything. They only truly understand three basic things:1. They all have each other.2. The broadcast text does not lie.3. Death is permanent.That is, untilsomeonemanages to somehow fuck up number 3.
Relationships: Antfrost & Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: [ dream again, dream better ] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2031484
Comments: 19
Kudos: 66





	1. [  p r o l o g u e  ]

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Free The Game, Beat the End](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25484263) by [goatgoatwasfound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goatgoatwasfound/pseuds/goatgoatwasfound). 



> this fic is loosely inspired by free the end, beat the game, my childhood of loving .hack//SIGN, and the added inspiration that is the glory of the minecraft credits.  
> as a note, this is shipping personas of block people. should any cc's feel uncomfortable, it will disappear. should any cc's want to talk about it, i'm always here.

There was only darkness. An amorphous void, neither warm nor cold, swallowed everything. It was as if the entirety of the world had become a deprivation chamber, where one could not even feel themselves floating in the vastness of the infinite. If one were to open their eyes, oblivion would greet them with something akin to kindness. Consolation, maybe. What use were there for eyes, after all, when there was nothing to see? Panic and fear fading, so distant now it was almost alien to them. There was no reason to feel anything there. There was no reason to _be_ anything here, to remember anything here. Who cared about the reason why? Why the dark, why the silence, why the lingering swirl of feeling inside them they so desperately tried to cling onto. Feelings, though-- Feelings did not come from nothing. Feelings had a cause, a source.

There had to be _some_ reason--

_`**Shush.** ` _

The hushed tone could cause shivers to run down a spine of pure stone.

`**I see the player you mean now.** `

_Player?_ The term wasn't foreign. Deep in the recess, some ember flickered to life with recognition. Yes, they were a player. Had been a player, perhaps. It was a title hard-earned, a amalgamation of phonemes and morphemes that together formed, if not their _name --_ whatever that name was, had once been -- but a _purpose_. Something, somehow even more important. Something even less worth losing. A name could not tell them what purpose could. Purpose gave them a singular point of orientation in that nothingness, a way through which to see the deep black of the ocean for what it was. Purpose told them which way was up. Purpose told them why legs were once worth kicking, why to keep their mouth -- if they even had one anymore -- clamped shut.

` _**P̸͈̥̤͈̬͇̓̍L̷̡̖͍̹͕͎̗̰͎͉̬̯͎͒̏̔̍͌̽̕̚͜A̶̡̢̛̩̺͓͉̣̟͎̺̭̮͜Ŷ̵̛͉̬̭̻̟̖̝̩̖̑͂̋͌̉͌̏̉E̶͓͉̮͕̤̻͈͓̳̮͎̗̲͙͛̉̊͋͑̒͘R̶̨̧̺͈̰͈͔̗͇̤͎̄̓͋͂͒͛̄̉̇̎͝͠Ṉ̸̡͓̓̓̈̾̅A̵̛̻̪̞͚̗̜̋̆̑̉̐̆͑͗̓͒̇̕͜M̵͎̯͉͓̈̂̈́̀̌̈̆͒͐̓̇͘͘͠E̸̢̡̛̛̼̘̤͕͉͖͍̩̙̳̳̖̾͑̂̈̈́͐͘̚̚̚̚?** _ `

They wanted to laugh. It bubbled up inside them like the fizzling of carbonation, but no sound came. The glee had nowhere to go, no cords to pluck. Unlike these voices, speaking from every direction at once, the player had no way of communicating back, no way of joining in the conversation happening all around them.

This, however, did not seem to deter the player's company.

` **I like this player. It played well. It did not give up.** `

This gave the player pause.

Being a player meant, intrinsically, that they played... something. It meant they had a goal. And, from the sound of it, the player had perhaps achieved that goal. If not achieved, maybe, then at least gave it a good, solid try. Maybe the goal was attainable; maybe it wasn't. The more complicated a game, after all, the longer it could all drag out. They remembered as much; vague shadows of pieces on a board, the sound of the shuffling of cards. Adrenaline coursing through their veins as they ran, the ghost of fingertips just barely grazing thin strands of hair. The chiming of childish glee. The rolling of dice on wood, on velvet. The bright flashing of lights from a box paired with a constant, furious _click-tapping._

Had the player played against these beings, then?

Had the player lost?

Is this what losing felt like?

` **--when it is deep in the dream of a game. What did this player dream?** `

` _**This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.** _ `

The player remembered.

This dream they described-- it was real. Or as real as a dream could feel like, they supposed. They recalled the vivid navy and reds that painted the sky in watercolor sunsets. The warmth of the sun's fading light on their skin. How beams of it, that light, streamed through the dense canopy of yellowed oak leaves in the middle of the summer months. The texture of bark underneath their calloused palms, so sturdy. Stable. And with it came the contrast of soothing, cool water. To drink, to bathe in. Faint memories flashed. The _drip-drop_ of it splashing onto stone. The bubbling of it in heavy, wrought iron. The rising steam of a hot, comforting bath. Growing hotter and hotter, still, until peaceful blues and soft sea hues broiled into golden, glorious orange and yellows. The smell of smoke. The blistering of skin. The way it made the shadows dance in the dead of night, mounted on the wall to allow the player to see.

And the player had worked with these things, had _created_ them. They could feel the phantom aching of hours upon hours that came with the swinging of an axe, the building of a home. They could remember the first time they coaxed flame to lick the end of a charcoal-dipped torch. The fresh smell of tilled earth and baking bread. A mirage of homes, of a community, with flowers on the window sills and lanterns illuminating paths. A flag waving in the wind. Music. Oh, how the player ached at the thought of hearing music again, of dancing and laughter. The player couldn't recall who they had danced with, who had played the music. The player couldn't remember the faces of those who lived in those homes at all, or who had sat patiently with them to wrap the blisters on their skin. A soft smile on a missing face. What the player did remember, though, was creation. Creation they had shared, once, with people who had mattered to them.

The same people the player once had destroyed with. Just as they had made tools to till and build, so, too, did the player remember the heavy weight of the hilt of a weapon in their hand. How it fit almost too perfectly. The sharp tang of copper between their teeth, on their tongue. How hard it was, really, to get the stain out of wood, of clothing, of skin. How it never really went away at all. The player could almost hear the shouting. Tall, straight shadows flying toward the player's face like a dense sea of trees as they ran, only this time, the exhilaration was fueled by fear and bloodlust in kind. The showing of teeth. Was it they who had once screamed themselves raw in rage, agony, and grief, or was that the voice of someone else? There was no way to tell; the player didn't even know the sound of their own voice. But they did know the sound a person made when the last air was forced from their lungs in a horrible choke. They did know the groaning, the banging on doors. The sizzle-hiss that once made hairs on the back of their neck rise. The terrible, endless droning.

The player still didn't remember their faces. Couldn't.

The darkness was freezing.

Their everything roiled and twisted up into frozen knots.

The player wanted to curl in on themselves to escape it.

` **Does it know that we love it? That the** **univer** **se** **is kind?** `

` _**Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.** _ `

` _**But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes its sad creation for reality.** _ `

`**To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere.** `

What kindness was there to be found in endless nothing?

What kindness was there that would make the screaming in the player's head stop? There was no joy or comfort that could blunt that piercing sadness, the ache of it so deep their entire being shuddered. What being could be considered _kind,_ of all things, if it just-- just _sat there_ and let them suffer? The player did not want to hear about how their sadness had purpose. How it was necessary. How could suffering like this -- suffering over something they only could remember as well as a person could desperately try to catch fleeting tendrils of smoke with their curling fists -- be a part of some greater task?

 _What is the point?_ the player thought to themselves.

` _**Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality. Sometimes I want to tell them of their importance to the universe. Sometimes, when they have not made a true connection in a while, I want to help them to speak the word they fear.** _ `

` _**Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely ~~ _ **Ẻ̵͈̗̤̠̇́̆̄̔̋͗̓̅̕̚R̸̡̥̋͌͛̀̍̇̍͊̚͜͜R̶͎͍̝̘͍͇̮̃̆Ó̶̡̡̪̣͖̹̬̈́̄̎̐̇̄̓̋̄̈̾͠R̷̢̡̛̥̭̙̘̣͖̮̲͙͚͑͌̎͜ͅ** _~~and ~~_**Ẻ̵͈̗̤̠̇́̆̄̔̋͗̓̅̕̚R̸̡̥̋͌͛̀̍̇̍͊̚͜͜R̶͎͍̝̘͍͇̮̃̆Ó̶̡̡̪̣͖̹̬̈́̄̎̐̇̄̓̋̄̈̾͠R̷̢̡̛̥̭̙̘̣͖̮̲͙͚͑͌̎͜ͅ**_~~ , I wish to tell them that they are ~~_**Ẻ̵͈̗̤̠̇́̆̄̔̋͗̓̅̕̚R̸̡̥̋͌͛̀̍̇̍͊̚͜͜R̶͎͍̝̘͍͇̮̃̆Ó̶̡̡̪̣͖̹̬̈́̄̎̐̇̄̓̋̄̈̾͠R̷̢̡̛̥̭̙̘̣͖̮̲͙͚͑͌̎͜ͅ** _~~in the ~~_**Ẻ̵͈̗̤̠̇́̆̄̔̋͗̓̅̕̚R̸̡̥̋͌͛̀̍̇̍͊̚͜͜R̶͎͍̝̘͍͇̮̃̆Ó̶̡̡̪̣͖̹̬̈́̄̎̐̇̄̓̋̄̈̾͠R̷̢̡̛̥̭̙̘̣͖̮̲͙͚͑͌̎͜ͅ**_~~. They see so little of reality, in their long dream.** _ `

` **And yet they play the game.** `

` _**But it would be so easy to tell them...** _ `

` **Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.** `

` _**I will not tell the player how to live.** _ `

_Live?_ the player thought with a grim, hollow laugh. _How is **this** living?_

In the vacuum the player's memories had left now began to simmer an incredible rage.

 _They aren't even listening. They can't even hear me. This-- This isn't living. This isn't **anything.** Where am I? _the player demanded. **_What_** _am I?_

` **The player is growing restless.** `

` _**I will tell the player a story.** _ `

` **Give it a body, again.** `

` _**Yes. Player...** _ `

` **Use its name.** `

``

``

`_**P̸͈̥̤͈̬͇̓̍L̷̡̖͍̹͕͎̗̰͎͉̬̯͎͒̏̔̍͌̽̕̚͜A̶̡̢̛̩̺͓͉̣̟͎̺̭̮͜Ŷ̵̛͉̬̭̻̟̖̝̩̖̑͂̋͌̉͌̏̉E̶͓͉̮͕̤̻͈͓̳̮͎̗̲͙͛̉̊͋͑̒͘R̶̨̧̺͈̰͈͔̗͇̤͎̄̓͋͂͒͛̄̉̇̎͝͠Ṉ̸̡͓̓̓̈̾̅A̵̛̻̪̞͚̗̜̋̆̑̉̐̆͑͗̓͒̇̕͜M̵͎̯͉͓̈̂̈́̀̌̈̆͒͐̓̇͘͘͠E̸̢̡̛̛̼̘̤͕͉͖͍̩̙̳̳̖̾͑̂̈̈́͐͘̚̚̚̚. Player of games.** _ `

``

``

`**Good.** `

``

``

`_**Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things.** _ `

And the player did. In that void, their lungs burned with the first, shaky breath in. Their fingers curled uselessly around nothing, stiff and somewhat numb, but they were _there_ , real as the rest of them. Their eyes blinked open, struggling to see _something_ , desperate to perceive anything. They moved. Their body twisted around, limbs treading through that nothing like denser air. Nausea and vertigo slammed into their core, and the turning resumed, this way and that, until their inner ear and stomach weren't ready to hop ship anymore. Somehow, they straightened up. Somehow, they slowly and rhythmically moved their arms and legs, like a child learning how to keep their head above the waves for the first time. The relief at seeing their own pale toes beneath them curdled quickly with a dawning realization.

"...What are you?" The player's voice was rough to their own ears, hoarse and grating as if they had never drank in their lifetime. "How--" Their mind reeled. "How did you do this? What did you do to me?"

` _**Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change. We are the universe. We are everything you think isn't you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the universe touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, player. To know you. And to be known.** _ `

Some of those terms called images to mind. Mountains, sure, but not a particular spirit that resided within them. They didn't know if they believed in spirits at all, let alone ghosts or aliens or something like a God. Whatever the green man was, though, earned a bit of a snort as they squinted into the void. Surely whatever this thing was, it had to be somewhere in this space with them. It's not as if they had something to hide behind. Eventually, as focus came to them, they began to notice two distinct irregularities to the utter blackness.

One, a source of forest green so deep and so dark it was almost entirely indistinguishable from the dark. And the player could see it.

` _**I shall tell you a story.** _ `

"Okay," the player said. "What about?"``

`_**Once upon a time, there was a player.** _ `

The other voice was close to the first, but it was as if something had mixed in a cyan blue with it. A deeper, almost aqua color. And they sounded eerily similar, too, just a half a note difference. The longer the player listened, however, the better they got at distinguishing the two. The green voice was softer than the aqua.

` _**The player was you, P̸͈̥̤͈̬͇̓̍L̷̡̖͍̹͕͎̗̰͎͉̬̯͎͒̏̔̍͌̽̕̚͜A̶̡̢̛̩̺͓͉̣̟͎̺̭̮͜Ŷ̵̛͉̬̭̻̟̖̝̩̖̑͂̋͌̉͌̏̉E̶͓͉̮͕̤̻͈͓̳̮͎̗̲͙͛̉̊͋͑̒͘R̶̨̧̺͈̰͈͔̗͇̤͎̄̓͋͂͒͛̄̉̇̎͝͠Ṉ̸̡͓̓̓̈̾̅A̵̛̻̪̞͚̗̜̋̆̑̉̐̆͑͗̓͒̇̕͜M̵͎̯͉͓̈̂̈́̀̌̈̆͒͐̓̇͘͘͠E̸̢̡̛̛̼̘̤͕͉͖͍̩̙̳̳̖̾͑̂̈̈́͐͘̚̚̚̚,**_`the aqua voice added.

The green spoke to the player again to tell its story, and the player could do nothing else but listen as they drifted.` _**Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas that was three hundred and thirty thousand times more massive than it. They were so far apart that light took eight minutes to cross the gap. The light was information from a star, and it could burn your skin from a hundred and fifty million kilometres away.** _ `

` _**Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience.** _ `

`_**Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story,**_`the aqua voice said.

` _ **Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes very beautiful indeed.**_`Green must have been smiling.` _**Sometimes the player woke from one dream into another, then woke from that into a third. Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.** _ `

` `

The player's head throbbed. They felt it in both of their temples. Pulsing, that ache was already beginning to spread, and they opened their mouth to try to tell the voices to slow down. Unbidden, the player remembered more things of a world that didn't quite seem right, and they could taste a foul bile in the back of their throat already, as if their entire body was trying to purge itself.``

`**Let's go back.** `

` **You are the player. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but--.** `

``This time, it was aqua who was interrupted with a soft reprimand.` _**Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head--** _ `

``

But they could tell the player was no longer listening to their stories. How could they? So many things raced through their mind like a reel of old, destroyed film, liquified and distorted and burning acidic patterns on the inside of their skull. Their lungs were constricted by the cage of their ribs, and their heart was panicked, trying to claw its way between those bars to escape. On the melting edges, they could just make out warped pairs of eyes. The sequence of code, a script. A hand, reaching towards them. Blood. It was blood the player was choking on; blurbing out of their mouth, staining their teeth pink.

`_**--and the player started to breathe faster and deeper and realized it was alive, it was alive, those thousand deaths had not been real, the player was alive.** _ `

` `

Was this what living was? What living felt like? _Wait,_ they thought desperately as life itself began to hurl itself around them like the dizzying loop of a carnival ride. _Thousands of deaths? Death? Who was-- Who was dead? Who was alive? I'm--_

`**You. You. You are alive.** `

If they weren't alive already, what were they?

The voices never left the player. They did not hasten with the player's frantic mind. They spoke as if they had just enough time, always just enough time, seamlessly filling in the silence between the other's words until the player felt like their spine might be ripped from their body, like they were in the process of being melted brain first. Everything _hurt._ Nerve endings lit up in unison, burning with icy, tingling pain, and the player seized. Muscled tensed. Veins bulged. Limbs gnarled in twisted shapes in that nothingness.

` **--and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight that came through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees--** `

And the air the player barely gasped in smelled like damp earth and blood.``

`_**--and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, where a fleck of light in the corner of the player's eye might be a star a million times as massive as the sun, boiling its planets to plasma in order to be visible for a moment to the player, walking home at the far side of the universe, suddenly smelling food, almost at the familiar door, about to dream again--** _ `

` `

And the lights dancing before their eyes obscured that darkness. Soon, it was the darkness blurred as fuzzy flecks as the player rapidly blinked their eyes. Grass tickled the back of the player's neck. Familiar hands -- calloused hands -- held the sides of the player's face.``

`**--and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream--  
** `

And the player was writhing like they had been tased.

` _**--and the universe said I love you.** _ `

And the player heard shouting, muffled and distant, like it was several rooms away. They were shouting a name.``

` **--and the universe said you have played the game well.** `

And the warmth seeped from the player's chest. For the first time, the pressure against it made them want to scream. Everything _hurt._``

` _**--and the universe said everything you need is within you.**_`

``And the player could feel wet droplets falling onto their cheeks from above.````

`**--and the universe said you are stronger than you know.** `

_My-- My name._ _`` _

`_**--and the universe said you are the daylight.** _ `

` `

_They're shouting my name_.``````

`**--and the universe said you are the night.** `

_I can-- I can hear them--_ ``

`_**--and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you.** _ `

And the player coughed wretchedly, and something rattled in their sternum.``````

` **--and the universe said the light you seek is within you.** `

And the pain slowly began to ease.``

` _**--and the universe said you are not alone.** _ `

` `

"-- _ **rge**_?"``

`**--and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing.** `

_**"He's-- There's no way he's--"** _ ` `

` _**--and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code.** _ `

_**"--saw it. It said he died. It's never wrong--"** _ ``

` **--and the universe said I love you because you are love.** `

_**"George. George?"** _

` _**And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better. And the player was the universe. And the player was love.** _ `

_**"GEORGE!"**_ A stinging red across the player's cheek.

` _**You are the player.** _ `

_Dream._

` _**Wake up.** _ `

``

` _**W̵̱̘̬̞̊̆̇̌̿͂̓͝͠Ȧ̴̯̮̗͈͕̙̬͙̖̮͎̦̂̅͗͑͒̌̿̃̐̍͠͠͠ͅK̸̛͉͒̐̌̋͗̐Ë̴̢͇̳̞͎̤̖̹́̃ ̸̧̨̗̝̱͎̯̳̳̞̙̻̰̲̼̉U̶͚̯͈̫̝͕̔̔͋̎̓̓̃̃̽̆̚͝ͅP̶͎̥̞̜̓͐̔̽̾̓̋̈́̈́̿͆̇̚͝--**_`


	2. [ 1 ] the beginning?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George wakes up.

**G E O R G E**

There was water in his eyes.

This should have been impossible. George wore goggles for many reasons; they helped him, otherwise colorblind, to better distinguish shades that would be otherwise imperceptible to him. They kept the leaves and wind from his eyes when sprinting or crashing wildly through the forests on horseback. They were a gift, too. One of his most treasured possessions given to him before.. Before.. He couldn't remember exactly _when_ he had been given them, but the when didn't matter. What mattered was they were clearly cracked. The right lens had fractured down the center, splintering off to chase down the rim in two places. Small shards of darkened glass were missing, cascaded somewhere around him in the sodden grass he was lying in. Through that hole poured in rain water, tickling his eyelashes and forcing him to screw that eye completely shut. 

His other eye opened tentatively to look up, to inspect his other lens and to make some sense of what was happening. His vision wouldn't focus, though. Even through that lens, the world wasn't nothing anymore. Everything was moving and shifting globules of color, almost as if someone had splashed the world around him haphazardly with a watercolor artist's cup. There was a shadow blocking out most everything above him, and he could hear sounds, but muffled and so far away. Maybe he had gotten mud in his ears. Or a bell, from the sound of the constant ringing in them. But no matter how hard George strained to listen, he could no longer hear those strange, ethereal voices murmuring to him from the darkness. Not even the faintest of whispers. 

_Where am I?_ George thought to himself. His head throbbed, blood pumping dense through veins around his temples. Sluggish, almost. Like his chilled veins were starting to thaw out again. 

George was cold. He still couldn't feel his fingers, and though he could feel his toes wiggling around in his soaked socks, they were also still numb. Arms tried to brace himself to sit up, but even they seemed foreign, almost as if they had gone completely asleep on him and still hadn't recovered from their pins and needles. The only parts he could reliably feel were the dull ache in his chest, the surprising warmth there, and the pressure of something directly on his sternum. The pain was dull at first. The longer he sat there, mind still reeling and body scrambling to react, the more that pain bloomed. Thick razor vines of thorns had curled around his rib cage, and the first breath he tried to take in was choked and wet. His mouth tasted like he had eaten a mouthful of dirt or iron.

The hand on his cheek was pleasantly warm.

It was the one thing he had to focus on, to ground himself with. The rough scrape of a thumb callous against the apple of his cheek stung his reddened skin. The surprising softness of the palm of a leather glove was welcome, though, and George barely allowed himself to lean into it.

The world began to focus.

"George?" Desperation, pure and wild. Pained. Panicked.

" _ **Get back here!**_ " a voice roared, cracking in its intensity. It was coming from somewhere to the right of him, but booming so loud it was hard to tell exactly how far. "Think you're gonna run away, huh? Think I'm going to let you WALK AWAY FROM WHAT YOU DID?! Guess again, dipshit! Get the fuck back here. _**I'll kill you, you bitch-**_ "

" _Sapnap_ \--!" Another voice was calling after the first, shouting his name. _Sapnap. That's Sapnap._

A third voice joined the fray, squeaking out, "Did-- Did you just _slap_ him?" Weakly, the voice added, "Language." It was barely mumbled.

"I'll do it again if it means it's working," the first voice promised, now deadly in its seriousness. "George? George, you can hear me. I know you can. I can feel you moving."

"He can't hear you. For the last time, I know he's your best friend, but he's--"

"No," another voice cut in. This time, it was firm, unwavering. It offered no room for argument or rebuttal, but that calculated detachment was focused entirely on him, like that of a surgeon in an operating room. It was the figure towering over him speaking. The pressure over his sternum doubled, and this time, a wounded cry twisted up involuntarily in George's throat. Stars danced around on the backs of his eyelids. "I'm not crazy, Bad. Look, he's breathing, see? And his hand is moving. George? He absolutely can hear me right now. Open your eyes. Come on."

The first thing George saw was a chipped white mask. Two pinpricks of black and a painted on curve made a perfectly neutral smile on its surface. There was a small crack down the center between the two eyes, almost as if it had been just nicked by the point of something sharp, but its wearer hadn't even noticed it yet. Wet sandy hair framed the mask, softly curled where it could peek out from underneath a deep yellow hood made of some sort of dyed leather. The mask covered to the jawline, where a dark high-necked collar hid away skin before the hood met the flaxen coat-cloak. _No,_ George thought numbly. _That's not yellow. It's darker. It's green. It's--_

 _"Dream,"_ George wheezed out, barely above a whisper. "Fuck. Oh my God-- S-Stop, it hurts. It _hurts--"_

"You're going to be okay, George." It wasn't comfort in the traditional sense. It was almost like an order, like George had no other choice _but_ to listen. "I'm not going to leave you, alright?"

Brown eyes rolled back out of habit, but as he felt Dream shift and settle his weight to sit beside him, George reached out to twist his fingers into the fabric of those stupid dark trousers. Dream was here. Sapnap was here. Bad was here. No matter what happened, no matter why he was hurting, he wasn't alone, and if Dream felt confident, George would believe him, even if squeezing onto Dream's leg until his knuckles turned white couldn't distract him from the constant white-hot stabbing in his chest. It was searing, worse than he ever imagined lava could be. Even has the pressure of his chest -- hands, he new saw, soaked in brackish water and blood, one of Dream's fingerless gloves and a longer glove of black and grey -- switched and repositioned with Bad's careful instruction, it did nothing to ease or even touch the agony. The netherite-coated diamond chest plate he had been wearing was cracked in two like a crab shell, right in the center, and through the gaping hole in his baby blue clothing, blood poured out three holes the exact spacing of a trident's tips.

"George!" The brownish hue he knew to be a shade of red and black cloak with curling horns butted into his field of view beside the white mask, and eyes of pure white stared back at him, full of astonishment and relief. "You're pretty messed up, okay, George? You got hurt pretty bad. I'm going to try to help, but I need you to talk to me while I do, okay? Do you remember where you are?"

George bit down hard enough on his lower lip to pierce the skin.

"Okay. Okay, bad time for questions," Bad babbled out. "Got it. Okay, George, listen-- This is going to sting? But it's what we need to do to make sure this is going to heal properly." Bad reached for the bandolier across his chest, black-dyed leather with various small circular pockets or harnesses of some kind. From there, he drew out a thin, straight test-tube of glass, and George watched Bad remove the cork with his teeth. They contrasted so white against the unnatural shroud cloaking his friend's features from view. Instantly, over the smell of rain, sweat, and blood, George was hit with something sweet and fizzy, almost like a carbonated watermelon soda as the glowing liquid inside bubbled, and its candy red contents swirled. With time to adjust, the goggles were making it easier and easier to distinguish it from the muted earth colors around them or even the red of Bad's sleeve.

"I'm going to have to pour this directly on?” The question was clearly rhetorical. Not that George was going to answer, anyway. "It's the only way we're going to be able to close these enough to move you."

"You bit through your lip," Dream pointed out. "Here. Use this." In front of George's face was a similar strap to Bad's, though this one was attached to the sharpened axe laying in the field beside George. He turned his head, and the normally shining netherite edge was caked in mud or blood. George's stomach twisted at the sight. Carefully, his face was turned away from it back to look up at the mask. "Open your mouth."

George wanted to make a joke. He wanted to say _no._ He wanted to tease Dream, to make some kind of comment about the insinuendo that _would have been_ , but there was no smile on George's face. There was nothing here to smile about, to joke about. There was no levity in the blood soaking the three of them. It wasn't _sexy_ , the way his teeth practically punctured new belt holes in the leather as he screamed until his vocal cords grinded to a silent, pained halt. If anything, the way Dream had to hold him down by the shoulders to stop him from instinctively, animalistically curling in on himself to shirk away from the source of the hot brand digging into the center of his chest was as tender as steel bars on a cage. It was for George's own good, but that didn't mean either of them right now were enjoying any second of it.

"Ant!" Dreamed called out. "Go get Sapnap. Make sure he chased them off, and bring him back. Before he gets his ass kicked, too."

The voices that replied were not Ant's. In fact, it was no one George could recognize at all. Strangers shouted out from the trees from their south, which, from what George could pull from the haze of his mind, wasn't where he remembered hearing Sapnap. "There they are! They're wounded! Go, now, while the others are distracting them!"

"Shit." Behind the mask, it was barely audible.

Weaving between dark oak trees were three players. George did not care to see their faces, to make note of what ridiculous clothing they were stuck in. He didn't care that they looked to be even younger than any of his friends; they were maybe no more than eighteen. He did notice, however, they didn't seem to be prepared to fight anyone. Each of them, a boy and two girls, were donned in simple, undyed leather armor. It strapped over their chests and banded around their knees and elbows like pads and their forearms and thighs like bracers. Leather boots strapped up to just below their upper calves, making heavy squelching sounds as they stormed through the muddy field towards them. In their hands were nothing more than unpainted wooden shields and swords crudely cut out of stone and sharpened to a dull edge.

It wouldn't have been enough to challenge even an unexperienced player; it certainly wasn't enough to challenge Dream.

George released his friend immediately to pull the leather from his mouth as Dream's hands dropped down to clench around the hilt of his axe. They didn't need to speak. Bad didn't even look up from where he was patiently coaxing the potion into George's wounds, one by one, letting the skin begin to knit itself together before adding more. The rain washed it clean, rinsing blood away before Bad continued again. 

"You don't want to do this." It was a warning as much as it was a threat, and as Dream stood tall, acting as a barrier between his friends and the others, George's first thought was: _God, he looks awful._ Though there was no face to read, he could see the tense stiffness in his best friend's shoulders, see the way his spine stood straight and tall. His hands were steady on the axe, but there was a blink of an eye where Dream raised the axe that George _knew_ should have been faster. The cloak that covered Dream's head and draped down behind him was removed and fell to the ground beside George, and now, he could see the unblemished shine and glow of enchanted netherite. It hugged his shoulders like pauldrons, cinched around his upper chest in heavy buckles, and molded around his arms in full vambraces to the wrist. Tassets hung from the supply belt at his waist, and the poleyn and greaves over his warm brown trousers and leather military boots completed the full set. The only thing missing was his helmet, which George could still see tossed to the side within his own reach. In a flawless spin, Dream twisted the axe in one hand. "I _will_ be forced to fight if you take one more step. And you _will_ lose."

There was a heavy silence hanging in the air. The rain fell harder. George's air hissed through his nostrils with a keen deep in his chest.

"But we have to stop you," one of the girls said. "And it doesn't matter if we lose. All we have to be is lucky."

"Or fast," another added, and George could see them spread out, one step at a time, until they were fanned out in the clearing.

A twitch in Dream's fingers holding his axe, and Dream was squaring his shoulders and hips to face the bulk of them.

"Don't watch, George," Bad instructed. "Look at me. I'm going to need your help. The fabric's getting in my way. Hold it open best as you can."

"Oh, come on," Dream grit out. "Are you really going to try? Everyone else ran away or are being hunted down. Right now. You're alone, you've got no one to help you, and you're just-- What, you're just going to resign yourselves to getting murdered on the _chance_ you can get past me? Is that it? Do you really think I'm that stupid?" The exasperation seeping into Dream's voice made George's chest tighten. " _Your leader_ couldn't even get me, and I killed him, too. What the fuck makes you think you can?"

 _Is.. Is Dream afraid of fighting them?_ George's eyebrows knit together. No, that didn't make sense. Why was Dream trying to reason with these people? George had no fucking clue who they were or why they were here, but George was smart enough to see the puzzle out of the few pieces he had. His mind may have been hazy, still frazzled by the aftershocks of pain rippling through him, but that didn't seem right. It wasn't like Dream to back down from a challenge. It wasn't like Dream to be afraid, to not take the initiative and seize the upper hand immediately. _Something_ was wrong, and it wasn't just the frustration creeping into his friend's otherwise threatening aura.

"Don't you dare talk about him like that!" the boy shouted. "He got George. There's no way he makes it out of here. That's enough."

 _Who?_ A creeping dread rolled in. _Who 'got' me?_

 _"_ George. Stop listening to them and _help me help you,_ you muffinhead."

"Oh, right." God, his voice made him wince. It sounded like he had guzzled sandpaper. He fumbled uselessly with one free hand to assist Bad in peeling away torn and bloodied cloth, and now, it.. almost looked normal. The skin was a hideous reddened pink, new and raw and ugly. It started a good inch below the normal plane of his torso, and he could feel the newly forming nerves in those rivets sizzle as Bad carefully poured drop by drop, encouraging more supernatural mending of sinew, skin, and bone. It wasn't enough. George's eyes refused to stay trained on his own wounds; they flickered to the corners of his vision, where that green cloak stood defiantly.

All thoughts left George's head the moment he saw it. Past Dream, past the three others, past several broken line of trees: a flash of striped black and white. A mop of black hair. A white headband. And a singular flame emblazed on his chest.

 _Dream isn't afraid._ The thought hit George like a sack of bricks, eyes widening behind their broken lenses. _He was stalling._

"Now!"

The three enemies didn't even have time to react before a silent, swirling burst of purple smoke flashed in the air above one of the attackers, and a sword cut the cloud in two. The momentum of the fall was enough to drive the blade with a sickening _crack_ into one of the female player's skulls, the one furthest right, trying to sneak around towards Bad. She immediately froze. She spasmed one, dropping both items in her hands. But the sound-- It wasn't the breaking of bone George expected to hear. No, it was like the sound of piercing a solid block of glass. With fascinated horror, George watched Sapnap land on his feet behind her, raise one foot, and boot her in the back hard enough to dislodge his weapon, swinging in a wild arc above him. She didn't bleed. As she fell forward, head tipping in George's direction, what should have been blood was instead a brilliant, glowing gold color, shooting into the air like rays in the darkened sky, and when she hid the forest floor, her entire body shattered like the most fragile porcelain. Shimmering golden dust twinkled in the remainder of that light, and the only thing left where a real, breathing person once stood was a pile of armor, her weapons, and George's broken sense of reality.

Sapnap wasn't alone, either. A whistling filled the clearing. The boy to the far left also broke into golden light and sparkles the second a crossbow bolt -- with, George noted, truly terrifying accuracy -- pierced through the base of the kid's skull. The arrow tip exploded out of the front of the boy's Adam's apple before he splintered. Stalking around the clearing, a brief flash of lightning reflected off the cat slits of Antfrost's pupils hidden still in the forest.

The center-most enemy froze, and that was all the opening Dream needed. It wasn't a fight. She barely even raised her shield in time to deflect Sapnap from behind her before Dream hacked into her sword arm at the wrist. On a normal person, it would have disarmed them; whatever these people, there _things_ were, instead her hand fell to the ground, leaving a clean golden break where it once connected to her wrist. Her feral screaming was cut short, however, as Dream pivoted with blinding speed, and one hand pressed against the upper choke of the axe's hilt to surge it towards her chest cavity. The diamond edge sank deep into a space between her ribs.

Sapnap immediately kicked the pile of belongings left that once belonged to the boy who had spoken, and he spat. "God, I hate them. They're so-- They deserve so much fucking worse than they get, especially for what they did. Fuck you. _**Fuck**_ you, stay dead, you--"

"Sapnap, focus," Dream reached a hand out to clasp onto Sapnap's shoulder, and even through the armor plating, it seemed to be enough to snap him out of it. "Did they get away?"

"They _wouldn't have_ , if you didn't send Antfrost to come stop me! Dream, why in the **hell** would you let them get away, after--"

"I had to drag him back," Antfrost supplied. Slinking out of the clearing, Antfrost looked to be a bipedal cat creature, almost cartoonish, tail swaying behind him. Yet, as Antfrost plucked the mechanisms to unload his bow and remove his bolt, George watched Antfrost freeze. Almost as if frames were missing, in one moment, there he was in his full feline glory. The next, he was very much a human man with hair the same color as his siamese fur, eyes that same bright blue. The ears stayed, however, swiveled and listening to the trees around them for the first twig to break underfoot, and his tail remained flicking behind him irritably. "Why, though, I don't know. I thought we'd be going after them by now."

"We don't need to." Dream's axe, too was slung back over his shoulder, and from here, George could see the crisscross harness it formed with the strap for Dream's sword.

" _ **WHAT**_." George's ears were going to end up bleeding. Sapnap grabbed the front of Dream's.. tunic? Hoodie? George wasn't entirely sure, but whatever it was, Sapnap had handfuls of it to shake Dream like a maraca. "What the fuck do you _**mean?**_ They hurt George, Dream. They _**killed him!**_ George! Our boy. Our homie. He's fucking _**dead, Dream.**_ And I'll be damned if we don't make them pay by burning down every motherfucking building they have. I don't care." A beat, then, more emphatically, _**"I**_ _ **don't care anymore."**_

"Sapnap!" Bad snapped. "You're being too loud. There could still be people around here, you dummy. And language!"

"Besides," Dream continued. If he was at all affected by Sapnap's words, George couldn't tell. "George isn't dead."

Sapnap slowed his shaking until he was simply holding onto Dream's shirt for dear life. "Dream.."

"He's not. Look. Go see for yourself."

"No. I _can't_ \--"

"Sapnap," George piped up, and though his voice was still grating and still hoarse and still anything _but_ his normal self, he tried to offer what minimal smile he could muster, "did your voice just _crack?"_

George was only answered by silence. His smile waned some, flickering like a dying bulb. "No, seriously. I never thought you cared this much. It's so sweet, even if you sound like you're just going through puberty. Again."

Sapnap rubbed both of his eyes furiously, and he stared at George with wide, dark eyes. "No way. No fucking way."

"Yes, way," George and Dream answered in unison.

"No. No, I mean, there's no way you're-- George, I--"

Sapnap's eyes darted from George to Bad to Dream.

Antfrost, now idly picking through some of the loot, said, "I thought he was dead." It was a statement of fact, but it left a silent question hanging in the air.

"Why do you guys keep saying that?" George asked, now fully sitting up. "It's-- I'm not. I'm clearly not. I mean, I was in really bad shape, but.." He trailed off. Bad couldn't meet his gaze. Dream was now facing him along with Sapnap, who still looked back at him like George was bigfoot in the flesh. "I mean, I'm definitely not a zombie, if that's what you're implying or something. And the potion worked. You can't use instant healing on dead things." George wasn't sure how he felt about having to try to prove his own mortality. Surely they didn't think he was a ghost?

"Dream..?" Sapnap started uneasily. "Is he..? No. There's no way, right? We would have seen it."

"No." BadBoyHalo shut that thought down hard, staring white daggers at Sapnap. "It's _George._ He's our friend. He's with us."

"I don't know what it is yet," Dream muttered. A hand came up to rub his face, and George watched his best friend startle once he realized his perfect mask was chipped. Dream traced a fingertip along the crack and sighed. "But it's late. And dark. I don't like the idea of us talking about it out in the open here, where they know our location. We're going to help George up and go set up a camp for the night. And we'll talk about everything there. And judging by the look on your face, George, we'll.. fill in the gaps, okay? We're going to be alright. I just want to make sure we're safe."

Every question George had stood precariously balanced on the tip of his tongue. How did Dream expect him not to ask about those half-finished questions? Why was Sapnap's insinuation -- whatever it might actually be -- making his skin crawl? Why were they so convinced he was dead when he was sitting right in front of all of them? "Questions like what happened to those people?" George asked, nodding his head towards Ant.

"You don't know? Ant asked.

"George, how could you ask that?" Bad asked, and now, his brows were pinching together.

"You know the answer, George. Don't you?" Sapnap's eyes narrowed.

The group exchanged looks once more before Dream crossed the clearing. He retrieved his cloak, securing it, before he offered George a hand up. "Camp first," he told them all. "Questions later. Alright?"

"Yeah," George mumbled. He reached up to clasp onto Dream's wrist, and Bad supported George underneath his opposite elbow and arm pit to help ease him up to his feet. He was wobbly, feet stumbling beneath him, but he offered that blank, smiling mask the first real smile he had had all day -- even if it was barely an upward twitch of the lips. "Yeah. I'm exhausted. And wet."

"I could really use a fire right now," Sapnap added. "Before I'm soaked through my underwear."

"Really didn't need to know that one, Sapnap." Antfrost's nose wrinkled.

"Me either," Bad added.

"At least the water will dry clean, you crybaby," George teased half-heartedly, leaning on his friends for support as they began to trudge through the muck. "I don't think a fire's going to get all this blood out."

"You're going to strip, George," Sapnap said, feigning deadly seriousness. "It's the only way."

"Not if we're all going to be crammed into a bed together."

"We can put all our beds next to each other and snuggle for warmth."

George idly massaged his sternum, listening to the banter pick up back and forth. Some of it felt forced, but as they wove through trees and distanced themselves further and further from that clearing, things -- if only for a moment -- felt like nothing had happened at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i updated early because i've had a ton of inspiration for this recently.  
> let me know what you think! leave comments for ideas or suggestions as always. <3


	3. [ 2 ] taking inventory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George gets some answers -- and faces harder questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the wonderful comments. this got more attention that i ever expected, and i love you all for it.  
> as always, this is unbeta'd, so if you catch something, let me know.  
> shit gets real. you have been warned.

**G E O R G E**

  
By the time they had found an adequate place to camp, George's everything ached. AntFrost and Sapnap had been tasked with exploring around George and his two caretakers, searching for a natural alcove they could easily block off for the night, and the cave they discovered would have to do. It spanned no more than ten blocks across in either direction with a pool of water occupying one of the corners entirely. The square sun in the sky, visible through breaks in the oak canopy overhead, was sinking low now, casting longer shadows that promised the coming of nightfall and its horde of monsters. Shelter was an immediate need. They'd have to make do with the stone and dirt.

George had been eased down, propped up against one of the walls in a slump. "I can still help," he protested.

Sapnap scoffed at him. "By what? We don't need a _manager_ to tell us how to close a cave, George. And it's not like you can stand up anyway." He had a point, and George hated him for it.

As he stewed in seething silence, he watched the rest of his friends. AntFrost held his left arm in front of himself, and for the first time since he had reawakened, he could see the familiar pattern project just above his bracer: a grid of four squares, a soft grey light heavily outlined in black. Carefully, AntFrost reached into his pocket, and from it, he placed four small cubes no larger than a child's block in each space. Wooden planks fused together, and out popped another tiny cube. This was thrown on the ground before his feline friend, and where once was nothing, a crafting table filled that entire space as if it had always been there. Similarly, George could spy Dream and Bad at the mouth of their cave, throwing out small cubes of smooth stone by hand until a solid wall formed, blocking them into the darkness. No door, no sign they were there at all.

While they busied themselves, George fumbled around to get to his bag sitting beside him, still strapped over one shoulder and across his torso. In his mind flashed a similar grid, only larger, filled with a variety of different small cubes and numerical amounts. _Oak plants, 63. Sticks, 8. Steak, 11. Torches, 2. Bones, 7. Arrows, 2._ Thumbing through them like a collection of change, it surprised him to see he was better armed than he remembered. He had a plain netherite sword and axe, as well as a diamond pickaxe enchanted with silk touch, efficiency, and unbreaking. _But if I have weapons,_ George thought to himself, _shouldn't I have armor or a shield?_ The empty spaces on that grid stared back at him, particularly the vacant slot he made a habit of keeping his shield in. He patted down his own pockets to see if he had made them more accessible, but his 'quick slots' were all empty except for one of Bad's empty glass bottles. Silently, he set it down beside the campfire for Bad to collect once he was finished.

"You're lucky I have coal for torches," AntFrost muttered into the darkness.

"Oh, wait-- I think I might still have the campfire from yesterday. Save the wood," Sapnap's voice echoed slightly off the icy walls. George could hear something being placed down. Fire roared to life on its own, filling their cavern with light -- and perhaps more importantly -- warmth. What little harmless smoke rose from its wooden frame dispersed into the dirt above. It mixed with the scents of damp earth and the lingering hints of blood in the air. "Hell yes."

"Well, I think we're safe for now." Bad's voice filled with relief, and as he pulled back his hood, the shadows looming over him once making him dark as pitch, an unnatural shade of nothing with only bright white eyes and pearly teeth retracted as well, leaving slightly pale skin and brilliant hazel eyes. "Geez, that was-- That was rough, huh, guys?" George noted he was wearing armor like the rest of them. The dark glint of flames on his netherite chest piece was unmistakable. Sapnap and Antfrost, too, were as decked out as Dream had been, head to toe clad in protection.

"Tell me about it," Sapnap grumbled, removing his helmet. His black hair was awkwardly flattened in some places. "I still say we should have gone after the rest."

"What good would that have done?" AntFrost asked. He was unbuckling the straps at the sides of his chest plate.

"I don't know, what good does killing any of them do?" Sapnap retorted, and the bitterness in his voice gave George pause.

"What do you mean?" he asked, brow creasing. "I don't.." The words trailed off, dying in his throat before he could form the rest of that hazy thought. His head was still thick with brain fog, still scattered and confused, but those words _meant_ something. George could feel their weight, could hear the defeat in his otherwise stubborn friend's tone, and he knew it wasn't right. Sapnap was good enough to have traded sparring victories with George more times than he could count. He could hear their laughter, the clashing of their practice weapons through that fog, where it was only playful exhilaration that followed Sapnap sing-songing his name. _Oh Geooorge!_

"You're joking," Sapnap deadpanned. "He's joking, right, guys?" A pause. "Dream?"

He searched for Dream. He hadn't said anything since they left the clearing, and George wasn't stupid. The tension hanging in the air was as thick as Sapnap's head, and that said _a lot._ Placing five, plain white beds side by side in a cave didn't require so much attention that he wouldn't be able to join in. It wasn't like him to be so quiet.

"George," Dream said. "What do you remember from today?"

"Dream, I think I'd know if I was forgetting things." George huffed, pulling his goggles up to rest in his hair.

"Just-- Humor me, okay?" Dream sounded.. tired. Exhausted, even. George watched his best friend sink down to sit beside the fire, beckoning him over to join. One by one, the others sat around it as well, allowing the heat to soak through their wet clothing. "Walk me through it. Start from the first place you remember."

"Why?" Bad asked. At least his curiosity was less pointed than Sapnap's seemed to be.

"Maybe so he can tell us what's going on?" Sapnap suggested. "I mean, I can't be the only one who wants to know what the fuck happened today."

"There's an explanation for it," AntFrost offered, calm and collected. "Let's just hear him out. Alright, Sap?"

While they bickered, George never took his eyes off the chipped mask staring directly at him. Challenging him. "That's easy. I--" George stalled. What _did_ he remember? "I.." He tried to will his clouded thoughts to take form or part enough to give him _something_ to work with, but he was only met with a brutal pounding in his temple and eardrums. "It's.. hazy," he admitted through gritted teeth. "I-- We were going somewhere. Looking for... something. I remember that much."

"Yeah, _okay, George,"_ Sapnap snorted. "You can cut the crap now."

"I don't think he's lying," AntFrost mumbled.

"Are you okay, George? You look--" A hand slipped out of a black and red robe, reaching towards him.

"I'm fine," George said, snapping a little harder than he meant to, and that hand faltered mid air before retracting. He _was_ fine. All he had to do was make sense of the pieces he had, right? Gentler, he added, "I'm fine, Bad. I am. I just-- I need to think. I must've gotten hit pretty hard in the head." He didn't -- couldn't -- look at any of them. He didn't want to see the expressions that matched those voices. Sapnap's most of all. George chest tightened as if he were being crushed by an anvil. "We were searching for.. lava? Or obsidian. Something like that." He didn't remember why. Why would they need it? Lava was easy enough to find and get. "I remember.. We just left this morning. We had horses." Whose names he couldn't remember, nor the color of their coats. "Horses we lost when we got.. ambushed?" This was more a question posed to the entire group.

"Yes, George," Bad affirmed softly. "We were ambushed."

"By _**Technoblade**_ _._ " Sapnap spat the name.

Flashes blotted out the small cave before him.

A shaft of an arrow jutting out of the side of his horse's skull.

Shouting mixed with heavy rain.

The momentum of being thrown, of the horse buckling and rolling forward. The hard _thud_ of its corpse in the dirt. His stomach lurched, and George instinctively clamped a hand up over his mouth. It was as if the world was spinning all over again, as if he were still stuck in the endless loop of tumbling and rolling and skidding to a halt, flat on his back. Arms laid out. Weapons in pocket. Shield, shattered and out of reach.

Above him, a canopy of trees. A dark sky. A blitz of lightning illuminating the figure whose mud-encrusted boot stomped into the soft of his belly.

A black -- no, a _red_ velvet cape lined with white fur. A golden crown. A blur of pink.

And then... nothingness.

The name Technoblade didn't mean anything to George. When he first thought of the friends gathered around him upon waking, even if he didn't immediately recognize _how_ he knew them or _where_ he knew them from, the emotional tether to them remained untouched. He trusted them. He felt safe around them. He knew, before he even remembered their names, that they were important to him. But Technoblade? There was a blankness, almost like a hole had been punched out of his paper-thin memories in the exact shape and size of whoever this person was. But if Sapnap hated him, surely George had to know who this Technoblade was. If what his friends were saying was true, then George had seen him, had _fought_ with him just today.

The more he pushed, the more he tried to fish _something_ out of that void, the heavier that pulsing in his temples throbbed. Unbidden dread welled up inside him, and for a brief moment, George thought he was about to be sick. His entire body was tense, like it was preparing for something he couldn't see yet _knew_ was there, was just waiting to--

"George? George, are you okay?"

"Of course he's not okay, Bad! Would you be okay if you got murdered by _-"_

 _"Sapnap._ Leave him alone, okay?"

"Well, I want a fucking explanation! I'm sure you all do, too."

His trembling arms moved on their own, and before he knew it, he lifted his free hand up to the side of his head. He cupped his right ear. Out of thin air, words superficially imposed themselves -- over his friends, over the flames and the darkness of the cave. He could see lines of pure white text at the bottom left of his vision.

_`**xXBanSheeXx was slain by Dream using [Nightmare].** ` _

_`**AutumnUnderFire was shot by Antfrost.** ` _

_`**HoneyTeaTree was slain by Sapnap using [Sapnap's Schlong].** ` _

It was the world broadcast text. He had seen it all to often before, prattling on about achievements players in the world had earned or announcing each victory or loss. Usually, he paid as little mind as he could; he remembered scrolling through it now and then while busying himself with basic mining, just to break up the monotony of stone. Half of the names didn't ring any bells, but even if he didn't _know_ them, he knew they had to have been the players his friends had killed just earlier today. They were, after all, the most recent on the list.

He barely registered shapes dancing behind the text, shadows moving along with their creators.

_`**GeorgeNotFound was impaled by Technoblade.** `_

_What?_

George read it again. Reread it. Over and over, the words never changed, but he could hardly make sense of it. It was as if it was written in a language he had nearly forgotten how to speak, and his brain was struggling to translate it into something meaningful, something he could actually comprehend. His breathing shallowed, and he trying to suck down oxygen quicker, trying to get air to his lungs before--

_`**GeorgeNotFound was impaled by Technoblade.** `_

_`**GeorgeNotFound was impaled by Technoblade.** `_

_`**GeorgeNotFound was impaled by Technobl--**`_

" _ **Sapnap, shut the fuck up for one goddamned second.**_ _"_

George startled. His hand flew out blindly, away from his ear, to banish that text from sight as fast as he possibly could, only to collide with something solid. His vision was still dancing in front of him, but his hearing was just fine. That voice, even muffled, was loud enough to echo in their small cave, and the venom and fury in its tone silenced the room instantly. A shadow fell over him as the source of that voice crouched down between him and the campfire, blocking out everything else. George's fingers twisted in the front of the other's tunic, his entire body was shaking. All George could see was the white of that mask. Two black dots. A simple, dumb curve of a smile.

"George, can you hear me?" Dream's voice switched almost instantly from something heated and sharp to soft. Comforting, even. George's throat closed up, fear and embarrassment in equal measure welling up inside him, but he managed to give enough of a nod for his friend to notice. "Okay. Okay, George. You're here. With us. No one else. And nothing is going to hurt you." That vehement promise was one George wanted to believe, so he forced himself to give another bob of his head. "Good. Okay."

"You could ask him colors of things in the room," AntFrost provided helpfully from somewhere he couldn't see. "If we're trying to ground him through this."

"Ant." There was a hint of humor to Bad's tone. "Colorblind. Remember?"

"Breathe in with me, okay, George?" George wrenched his eyes shut. He could feel Dream's chest expanding, slow and purposeful, under his tunic, and George did the best he could to match. His lungs were only half-filled before he choked out a sound, ribs crushing like a vice. Immediately, Dream stopped. He exhaled, and he waited for George to try again. Each attempt came a little easier, pushing back against the panic inch by inch. And finally, as he let that breath go, counting from one to eight, he was no longer a rattling mess of frantic thoughts, but himself, George, staring at the vacant smile of his best friend.

Shame heated his face, and he dropped his hand as soon as he could back to his lap like they had burned him. "..Thanks, Dream."

"Don't mention it," he said simply, moving to sit cross-legged between George and the campfire, an imposing figure between George and Sapnap's ire. Out of the corner of his eye, George could see the back of that dark hair as he and Bad spoke in whispers.

"Hey." George's eyes snapped back to the mask. "So you don't remember anything from before that? Not where we were coming from?"

It was a diversion, and George jumped at the opportunity. He brushed his knuckles along his jaw. "No. I mean-- I'm sure we had to have come from somewhere, like a base or something, I don't know. It's what makes the most sense. And I get these.. glimpses, I think, of what it looks like? Like, houses, lanterns. That kind of stuff. But it's.. murky. At best."

"But you remember us," Dream said. His normal teasing lilt slipped back into his voice at that.

"Well, yeah. You're.. you. Of course I'd remember you guys." George's mouth slipped down into a frown at that. Would Dream really think he'd forget all of them? Locations were one thing; bases came and went all the time in a world like this, as did horses and even enemies. But friends?

Dream hummed, thoughtful. "Well, you're not wrong," Dream said, and George could hear the smile in his voice. "It's-- Honestly, people have just started calling it _The Dreamlands_ most of the time, but it had a proper name at one point. I don't even remember what it is. But all of our friends are there. We have houses, you know, supplies, all within one large walled in city. It's well-hidden and protected. And we've got traps all over to deter people like you saw today from finding or getting to us."

"Was it--" The spray of fresh water, a heavy mist, only welcoming this time. "Did we hide it behind some waterfall? In a mountain?"

"Yes!" Dream's excitement overshadowed that painted on smile as he reached out, squeezing both of George's shoulders. "See? You do remember. That's a good start."

"Your mask," George found himself saying and pointed to it. "Did it get chipped while..?"

"Oh. Yeah. Probably," Dream answered. One of his hands lifted, and out of leather gloves, a finger carefully traced the split. "But it's no big deal. A mask is easier to fix."

"Who did it?"

"Honestly, I didn't even realize someone had until the fight was already over," Dream admitted with a shrug of one shoulder. "A lot happened so quickly. It's hard to be worried about something like that when I'm focused on, you know, more important things." _Things like not getting killed,_ George thought to himself. _Things like avenging me._ "I.. I didn't even realize he was with them at first, because it was such a clusterfuck. I think Spirit got butchered before I even hit the ground, but they didn't know anything about crits or actually using shields effectively. It's almost like they were never taught how. Or they're just that bad."

Morbid curiosity caught George's tongue. "How many were there? I.. I didn't scroll that far back."

"Eleven, plus him. Fifteen total if you count the three stragglers at the end."

 _Fifteen people._ George had died at the hands of one person, but the four of them had managed to take on almost three times their odds and come out without so much as a scratch on them.

"One of those girls said you.. you killed him. Did you?"

The room fell silent. Even Sapnap and Bad hushed at the question, and soon enough, they, too, shifted closer to join the smaller circle. Dream settled in beside George, leaning back against the wall. "I did."

"So this Technoblade-- he's dead, right? Like-- He's gone. We're not going have to have worry about him again." The wave of relief ran from the base of his neck all the way down to his toes, and though it couldn't rinse the guilt away, the fear certainly went with it. That is, until he saw the look on Sapnap, Bad, and AntFrost's faces as they all exchanged glances. "Right?" George prompted again, more forcefully. "If you're all so freaked out that I died, that means-- it means something. It has to mean he's--"

"No, he's not gone, George."

A knot of ice settled at the base of his spine as he spat out, "Why the hell not? Why is me dying such a big deal, but he's-- What, got infinite lives or something? Doesn't that mean we can just respawn like normal?"

"Technoblade never dies," AntFrost added wryly.

"No, you idiot." This time, it was Sapnap who answered, though he refused to meet George's gaze. He was prodding at the campfire with a stick in hand. "You really don't remember, do you."

"What gave you that impression?" George snarked bitterly.

"George," Bad warned. "It's-- You have to understand, this is something we all just.. know. It's hard to try to explain, okay? But you have to believe there're reasons behind us trying to process everything right now while trying to figure out how to best answer you. We're just as thrown here as you are." 

"No, Bad. It's okay. It's really simple actually," Sapnap started. "What's so hard about a whole group of people ditching us because they want to be trapped here forever? What's _so hard_ about being _betrayed_ by people who _said_ they were going to help us, only for them to turn around and start griefing us at every opportunity? You know why we were out here, George?" A particularly hard jab at the campfire's logs sent a plume of embers towards the ceiling. "Because we're looking for lava. That's it. Lava! It should be really, really easy to find, right? You'd think so. It should be. But there's an entire group of players out there destroying or taking all the source blocks they can find."

"Sap." The name coming from Dream was a warning, but it was one Sapnap didn't heed. Each word coming from the his mouth was vicious and scalding, and George knew, deep down, it was meant to burn him. Even the weight of Dream's hands on his shoulders barely kept him focused.

"And they don't sleep, they don't worry about mobs or running out of food. Because even if they decide to go skinny dipping in _**fucking lava**_ _,_ they just explode into glowstone fairy dust and respawn back at Camp Douchebag. Over and over and fucking over again. Because _they_ have the resources to go to the Nether. Because _they_ _**somehow**_ got respawn anchors to work, even when beds don't. Even though, as far as anyone else can tell, we're playing hardcore, which _**should**_ mean no respawning at all. And now, they don't fucking care about the fact the rest of us _don't_ come back. I mean, you heard them today, right, Goggy? They just have to get lucky." His tone dropped flat and full of hatred. "That's it. They get lucky one time, and that's fucking it for us."

"Except for you." Sapnap turned to stare right into George's eyes, and George swore he could feel those dark eyes burning like coals, trying to sear right into him. "So this whole _Oh Dream, I don't remember anything,_ stupid bitch bullshit isn't fucking good enough, George. Because people just don't come back. They _don't_. So you--"

"Shut the fuck up, Sapnap," Dream snapped. He was already halfway up on a knee to stand, every muscle a tense coil ready to spring if Sapnap exploded.

"Why?" Sapnap roared back. "You want to know, too! And Bad, and Ant. We all do. Everyone knows this, Dream. And you fucking bet everyone back home is going to be asking how the _**fuck**_ George is with us _**when they all read he died."**_

George ground his teeth together until his jaw ached from the force. "Are you insinuating something."

"Fuck yeah, I'm insinuating!" Sapnap said. "And I fucking will, if no one else will. How did you come back, George? Do you have something you want to share with the class?"

"Say it again." Dream's voice, though much quieter than Sapnap's, was colder than ice.

"Can we _please_ stop shouting and fighting?" Bad pleaded. "Guys? Please. It's been a long day--"

"I don't fucking know, Sapnap," George bit out. "I. Don't. Know. I didn't even know about any of that until you told me! I haven't got any idea why I'm back, or whoever else isn't, or why those people died like-- like _that._ But if you think I'm some kind of traitor or secret double agent whose going to turn against you, you're absolutely mental." Exhaustion was heavy in his limbs as he moved to stand, but rage pushed him forward until he was towering over Sapnap's seated form. Instinctively, his hand slipped into his pocket, searching for the hilt of _something._ "I'm not your enemy. I don't even know who this Technoblade guy _is._ But if you want to sit here and slander me and call me a traitor, you're going to have to fight me over it."

Sapnap reached for the hilt of his sword propped against the cave wall.

"That's _**enough.** _Both of you."

George turned to look over his shoulder. AntFrost was sitting beside Bad with his crossbow visibly out as a deterrent and across his lap. Bad was staring at them all in open shock. But it was Dream who had spoken, Dream who cut through the heat of their argument with his calculating cold. Dream, unarmed, who had stood with George to grasp Sapnap by the scruff of his shirt like a misbehaving pup and heave him up to his feet. It seemed effortless, but George knew better. He could see the strain, see how the arm beneath the green tremored faintly from exertion.

"No one knows how George came back, or how, or why. But he didn't break like they did. He's clearly not connected to a respawn anchor, or he'd be thousands of blocks away or in the Nether right now. And I believe him when he says he doesn't remember."

"You would," Sapnap hissed under his breath. " _Simp."_

"God, you're such a--" Dream cut himself off with a sharp exhale. "What would it take to convince you, Sap? He nearly just broke down trying to remember what happened today, and you want him to, what, tell you he waited until _**after**_ I--" It was faint, barely there, but George could hear the slightest crack in Dream's voice, an emotional waver quickly stomped out by his own righteous fury, "Was getting impaled and having Technoblade gloat over his body somehow part of the _big, master plan_?"

"I don't know!" Sapnap roared back. "I don't fucking know, Dream. I'm just not a fucking idiot."

George was stunned. It wasn't often he watched Dream falter. "I don't need protecting," he said automatically, though it was clear neither of them heard it. George was a capable fighter. He was decent with a sword or axe. He was-- There was a reason he was here, a reason they trusted him to go with them, if the world was as dangerous as they claimed it to be. Hell, the mod loot in his inventory proved he could handle his own if he had to. "I don't know what a respawn anchor is, really, or how to even make one. And when I try to think about-- about what happened, or before I came to again with Bad and Dream, I-- Everything starts to hurt." And he could feel the needles pressing into every inch of his skin, and the air around him grew thinner and thinner. "I feel dizzy, like-- Like somehow I'm falling through the floor. Like I-I'm going to be ill. I wish I had some sort of answer for you, but I don't. I'm just here now. So either you're going to have to learn to accept that, or--"

"Or what, George?" Sapnap mocked. "You'll cry to Dream?"

"Or I'll leave," George said flatly. "If it's really _that inconvenient_ to you."

"Yeah, go running off to your griefing friends." Sapnap's laugh was mirthless.

"George--"

George interrupted Dream instantly, talking over him. "I can handle myself, thank you very much. And if he's really convinced I'm just going to stab you all in the back, then what's to stop everyone else thinking the same thing? Maybe it's best I just go off on my own. Because if my only _friends_ think _so highly_ of me, I'd take my chances alone against the people who tried to _kill me._ "

"No one is asking you to do that, George," Bad piped up sternly. "I don't care what Sapnap says. You'll get lost, or you'll stumble into one of our traps."

"Or more of the griefers," Ant added.

"Exactly. And none of us want that, right?" Bad asked them all. "Right?" Dream immediately shook his head. Ant murmured his assent. Even Sapnap, shoving himself free from Dream's grip, snarled out something that sounded agreeable. "None of us want George gone. You were all devastated when we found out. It's been the worst possible day for all of us -- for George especially. Just because this seems like it's too good to be true doesn't mean we have to be at each other's throats. We can be reasonable. We can figure this out _together_ , like the friends we are, and we can figure out how to handle everything else one step at a time. Okay?"

"Don't go, George." Dream's voice was more muted now, sobered, but the grip on his forearm was tight enough to make George's bones creak. "Please."

George looked from Dream's arm to that mask, and all at once, the anger-based fuel source burning inside him ran out. As the fire died, his body turned to dead weight, and he was barely able to flex his own fingers, let alone pull out of Dream's grasp, even if he had wanted to. And some part of him did. His friends didn't trust him. Sapnap, someone he's known for as long as he could remember, thought he was going to turn against them, if he hadn't already. If they even thought him competent enough to do that.

"Why don't we get some rest. For Bad's sake," George added, turning away from all of them to walk towards the beds Dream had set up. The others must have heard the change in his voice, because the only answer was the crackling of the fireplace. "We can.. I don't know. Tomorrow we can decide what we're doing next."

"It's not even a third day. We get a weird half-sleep at best," Sapnap muttered. "Stupid bitch."

The urge to punch Sapnap's face was rising by the minute, but so was the instability of George's legs. "Well then get in your bed and _pretend_ to sleep. I don't care. As long as you don't stab me while I'm trying to rest, because I'm going to pass out at this rate."

Let Dream and Bad figure it out. George didn't care anymore. His inventory was dropped beside the rightmost bed, his pockets emptied into it. He eased himself down as gently as he could onto that mattress. His pectoral muscles tensed and pulled strangely around the newly-forming scars in the center of his chest, and he winced slightly, flat palm pressing against them. It wasn't a painful sensation, but it brought with it immediate reminders he'd rather not think about. The sheets were pulled up over his body, over his head, to block out the rest of the conversation and the world entirely. Their muffled whispers mixed with the burning campfire, the occasional drip into the cavernous pool.

His eyes closed. The darkness welcomed him home again, and he swore he tasted something sour and sweet and aqua.

_`` _

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also, if you want me to include your username as a minor/tertiary character, comment it below.  
> i'd be more than happy to take suggestions.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you all enjoyed the ride with me.  
> i should be updating this weekly.  
> my inbox and discord are available to talk or bug me for updates. [Anders#4692]  
> additionally, this will have no romantic ships as far as ive planned it, but it is meant to be hella long.  
> the real story starts next chapter.
> 
> see you all then!


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